5/18/2004

Today, after handling some things at the school library, I helped some friends move their belongings from one apartment to another in one of the student housing buildings in the Foggy Bottom area. I was talking about a photo assignment I might procure that involves objects from the Santeria religious stores called Botanicas. It was just a brief conversation with a fine arts student named Jabari. He is a black man with dreads, a description that might fit a number of practitioners of Santeria. Santeria it a very unique blend of the African Yoruba people's tribal beliefs and Catholicism. The two abstracting faiths came together when slaves were brought to South America and forced to practice Catholicism. When Jabari left the apartment I noticed this night light, a common purchase at your local Urban Outfitters ... a sacred purchase at your local Botanica.